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What are you seeing square foot costs at these days for high-end residential?
The 6000 s.f. range of luxury homes. After it is all up and everyone has gotten paid. I’ve been operating at the ‘$200 per’ neighborhood in my professional dealings.
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What are you seeing square foot costs at these days for high-end residential?
The 6000 s.f. range of luxury homes. After it is all up and everyone has gotten paid. I’ve been operating at the ‘$200 per’ neighborhood in my professional dealings.
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Replies
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It's all in what kind of house your clients want. I've seen houses with less square footage go for more, and the "McMansion" types go for less.
There is no real formula unless you're building cookie cutter suburb kind of stuff, over and over and over......
Ed. Williams
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Thanks for Responding Ed.
The real reason I was asking was just to see the range from folks. I know it can be anything, but I would eliminate the extremes. I was just wanting to hear more of the norms (at the higher end). I'm more new to this end of the market.
Because ....
In FHB #123 there is a commentary on preliminary cost estimating that I'm trying to perfect for my own business. The article on page 16 of that issue is called "How Big is a Square Foot?" and goes into developing "fractional multipliers" for various types of spaces within the house to come up w/ what the author, Robert Knight, calls "factored square feet."
Applying this is simple enough, the author finds that a 'Screened Porch is roughly 40% of the base square foot cost, so the multiplier is 0.40 x say 100, if you predict the sq.ft. base cost to be $100 per. You can then add up all the various spaces and get a rough idea.
Trouble I'm having is in assigning a BASE SQUARE FOOT COST to something so 'custom' and luxury. I can accurately predict the sq.ft. costs of a modest house (2600 sf) in the 'burbs to be about $100 a sq. ft. I have far less experience w/ this high-end market.
If possible, I'd like to hear as many ranges you folks have for building homes. Not long ago, I would have thought that $150 was high, high-end; however, in the article the author says, "a luxury model at $200 a foot." That has me thinking, and thinking again. If I'm more than $50 a sf OFF for something that might be about 8000 sf. then I need to scale down quickly.
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You might try R.S. Means Square Costs Foot 2000 book or CD-ROM (www.rsmeans.com). The book is about $100.I've never used it but it might be helpful. It's supposed to have square foot costs for 930 localities in the U.S. and Canada.
I would agree with Ed's comments ....from what I've seen, tract houses are really driven by square foot costs, to the point where there are no lawns in the back yard (they are extra) and no light bulbs in permanent fixtures. Real custom homes are a different animal.
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Well, I heared back from Mr. Knight, author of the Sq.Ft. article, and he confirmed that in his methodology the only way to arrive at a Base Square Foot Cost is to relate it to your own history. Meaning, there is a little bit of a guess w/ preliminary cost estimating. He put his designs (he's an architect) on the web for all to see and says the track record they have puts the BSF range between $130-$200 per sqft.
I have another method in mind to narrowing this down. I intend to ask the client if they plan to go with all "Sub Zero" kitchen appliances or standard "GE."
If they say, "definitely Sub Zero," then I'll use the $200 value. They say, "GE," well, then they get a break!
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What are you seeing square foot costs at these days for high-end residential?
The 6000 s.f. range of luxury homes. After it is all up and everyone has gotten paid. I've been operating at the '$200 per' neighborhood in my professional dealings.